‘8 Days: To The Moon and Back’ is a feature-length drama documentary marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The producers were given access to hundreds of hours of declassified audio recordings of conversations between Mission Control and the astronauts. This film uses cutting-edge digital effects combined with dramatised reconstruction and film archive to tell the untold story of the first moon landing.
Ben Ormerod - ENVY Dubbing Mixer said: “The brief was to make everything feel as real as possible and to tell the story and different stages of the mission through sound. Likewise it was important to preserve the quiet moments to enable the footage to really shine.
I created different atmos beds for the lunar module and shuttle and used different reverbs to give the sense of space and stripped back sound after some of the big moments; some of the images were so striking they didn’t need anything but music.
The main challenge was to make all the dialogue intelligible. Due to the distances involved the recordings had a lot of interference and up to 4 or 5 different hums and buzz. After EQ’ing out as much of the unwanted noise as possible I used izotopes rx software to clean the dialogue.”
Dicky Everton, ENVY On-line Editor said: “We worked closely with the producers to ensure that we were using the highest quality archive source, we wanted to deliver the most accurate and engaging experience possible and only the best footage would enable us to accomplish this. The newly-shot reconstruction footage was graded and graphically treated so that it inter-cut seamlessly with the archive material surrounding it. We also ensured that all graphic layers were imported and handled in a way which avoided multiple compression issues. Finally, the subtitling was checked for accuracy against official NASA transcriptions of the actual conversations”.
Envy performed full finishing post for this 90min special for BBC Studios.
8 Days: To The Moon And Back airs Wednesday 10th of July, 9:00pm on BBC TWO.
Dubbing Mixer: Ben Ormerod
Colourist: Vicki Matich
Online Editor: Dicky Everton
Post Producers: Jannine Martin, Edith Rivers & Emile Bjork
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8 Days: To The Moon And Back (1×90’) is made by The Science Unit, BBC Studios, co-produced with PBS and The Open University, in association with Canal +.
